First OpenCulture meeting held at DCMS
The first meeting of the OpenCulture network took place on the 25th September. Jointly organised by the Collections Trust and Culture24, the meeting included representatives from DCMS, MLA, Arts Council, the BBC, London2012, the British Library, the National Archives and a wide range of others.
The meeting was a huge success, providing an open forum which covered topics ranging from the demand for digital heritage to the public and economic value of online services.
There was a strong feeling that the days of ‘leading’ technical development are long gone - that the pace of change is too fast for policy and funding to be really effective in this directed sense. In its place, there is a model emerging of very active exploration and development across entire industries, coupled to a clear sense of overall direction. The role of national agencies may well be to create the conditions in which this can happen.
This meeting was the first airing of the Statement of Digital Values & Principles, which will serve as the internal working document to inform the work of Collections Trust, MLA, Culture24 and UKOLN. Further information about this will be covered in future posts.
The other main outcome of the meeting was that there is a real thirst for this kind of joined-up approach across Cultural and Creative Industries. Collections Trust will be working with Culture24 to plan future events, and we are already thinking of an annual OpenCulture conference to bring together ALL the relevant sector players.
